14 States That Require Cursive Writing

Claire, 12, Evelyn, 10, and Grace Nesvacil, 14, write about their day at school on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019, at their home in Green Bay, Wis. The Nesvacil family has won awards at the state and national levels for their penmanship. Claire, left, was the state winner for handwriting in fourth and fifth grade. Evelyn, middle, was the state winner and national semifinalist in third grade. Grace, right, was the national winner in fifth grade and went to state in third and fourth grade.

The Nesvacil sisters of Ashwaubenon take their handwriting seriously.

Grace Nesvacil, now a freshman in high school, was named the nation's top fifth grade hand-writer in the 2016 Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest. Her sister Evelyn was a semifinalist as a third grader, and another sister, Claire, earned a state award in the competition.

All three of the siblings attend Ashwaubenon schools, where curriculum instructor Jill Kieslich says they still teach cursive to students in second through fifth grade, although it's not required as part of Wisconsin's Academic Standards.

The sponsor of the contest, Ohio-based Zaner-Bloser company, is a longtime producer of writing, penmanship and grammar materials for schools. During the 1800s, founders Charles Zaner and Elmer Bloser developed a cursive style that dominated classrooms for decades.

But cursive has been on the decline since the rise of personal computers. In 2010, when most states adopted Common Core curriculum standards meant to equalize education in America, nothing about cursive was mentioned. Today, teaching cursive has declined to the point that it's not unusual to find teens and twenty-somethings barely able to decipher it. Often, children master typing on a computer, tablet or mobile phone before they feel comfortable writing by hand.

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin legislators see this trend as a problem and recently crafted a bill that requires cursive be taught in all the state's elementary schools — public, private and independent charter — and incorporated into Wisconsin Standards for Language Arts.

Sponsors include the chairs of both the Senate and the Assembly education committees, Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) and Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), as well as Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee).

Wisconsin currently only requires students to master the ability to print all uppercase and lowercase letters by first grade. The recent proposal calls for students to write legibly in cursive by the end of fifth grade, measurable through standardized testing.

The legislators say they are not clinging to the past, that there are serious reasons for keeping cursive alive.

"It's more than just a nostalgia thing. There are practical reasons for knowing cursive —things like signing a check or legal documents because your signature is a bond," said Thiesfeldt, who taught for years and was an interim principal in Fond du Lac's Lutheran parochial school system. "Students also need to be able to read historic documents, and take notes quickly."

Studies have shown learning cursive improves hand-eye coordination, dexterity and requires a higher thought process that printing, Thiesfeldt said.

And research by Pam Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel Oppenheimer of UCLA found that students who took notes in longhand remembered more — and had a deeper understanding of — the material than those who took notes on their laptops.

"We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note-takers' tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning," their 2014 report said.

Eighteen states — many of them in the South — now require cursive instruction. If Wisconsin is added to the list, it will affect districts large and small.

The Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District in south-central Wisconsin, for example, hasn't provided cursive instruction since the start of the 2013-14 school year, said communication director Perry Hibner. Teachers in the district were told not to require cursive for any part of their instruction because students coming into their classrooms were no longer being taught the skill.

Parents in the school district who desired their children learn cursive are encouraged to teach them at home.

"Effectively, with more and more testing and assessments being done online — including those required by the state — the decision was made to stop teaching cursive writing," Hibner said.

Claire Nesvacil, 12, writes about her day at school on Oct. 9, 2019, at their home in Green Bay.

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Sarah Zurawski often debated the topic with teachers and administrators who were on both sides of the cursive issue when she worked as a school-based occupational therapist. She now teaches a clinical doctorate program and conducts research through UW–Madison's School of Education.

"From a purely clinical perspective I've worked with several students who struggled with manuscript writing (reversals, illegible letters, etc.) who seemed to do better with cursive writing," Zurawski said. "Many of the students I've worked with were highly motivated to learn cursive because it seemed almost like a rite of passage as a third grader."

Teaching students to write effectively is a key component to their success, she said. If a child can't write automatically (without a lot of conscious thought), their higher order writing skills (choosing and spelling words, constructing sentences and organizing a composition) suffer.

Teacher Mary Pat Mallien instructs her fourth graders during a cursive handwriting lesson at Elmore Elementary School in Green Bay on Jan. 25, 2012.

Wisconsin Association of School Boards is opposed to establishing curriculum through legislation, and argues against the bill, according to governmental relations director Dan Rossmiller.

"We would prefer the issue be addressed through the DPI's Standards Review Council, where broader input can be received, than through the legislature," Rossmiller said. "Further, now is the perfect time to be addressing the issue through the academic standards process, since writing standards is currently in front of the council."

Both Olsen and Thiesfeldt are members of the council.

Calligrapher Sue McConnell of Whitefish Bay says parents approached the Mequon-Thiensville School District requesting their kids learn cursive. The solution was to offer a course she now teaches through the Mequon-Thiensville Recreation Department. In February, she begins a cursive class for grade-schoolers at the Whitefish Bay Recreation Department.

"I've had six boys in third through fifth grade in my first class, and the only one who knew how to write cursive had been home-schooled," McConnell said.

Getting cursive back into schools is something the Cream City Calligraphers & Paper Arts Guild out of Milwaukee, of which McConnell is a member, has been pushing for, she said.

"To me, when I read on Facebook that they were rewriting important documents written in cursive just so kids could read them in print, I was like 'No.' We are going backwards," she said.

Genealogy researcher Mary Urban of Caledonia reads cursive documents every day in her line of work, often in various forms of old world script. With today's interest in learning ancestry, she says she can't imagine how anyone would be able to read something as simple as a death certificate or church books without knowledge of cursive.

"Imagine not being able to read even your parents' or grandparents' letters or other papers that they wrote in cursive," Urban said. " A person's cursive signature and writing is as unique as your finger prints and DNA."

The rural Rosendale-Brandon School District in the northeastern part of the state teaches cursive in second and third grade, but curriculum director John Hokenson said he's uncertain whether involving the state is a good approach.

"Perhaps rather than a requirement, a recommendation from the state for teaching cursive would suffice, much like recommended minutes for instruction," he said. "We needed to add keyboarding many years ago, and we still need to teach printing, so leaving it up to individual districts and local school boards to prioritize how much is enough seems to be best."

Fond du Lac's curriculum instructor Danica Lewis said students learn both printing and cursive and generally choose what they prefer when writing.

"I believe that the instruction of handwriting certainly has its place in school," Lewis said. "From kindergarten on, we instruct the students in writing for a purpose and for an audience, to ensuring legible writing."

If a student's knowledge and mind can be expanded with something as simple as writing, why not do it, Thiesfeldt said.

"I would be happy to help any school who says they don't have time in their day for it, because beautiful handwriting is something kids can take pride in," he said.

Contact Sharon Roznik at 920-907-7936 or sroznik@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/reporterroz/